Searching for Moore (16 page)

“What the fuck? What the fuck happened to her?” Schooner spit out angrily, shaking his head. This was the nightmare that he prayed every night would not come to pass. What the fuck, Baby Girl, he thought.

“Didn’t you guys spend the summer together in New York?”

“No.” Schooner sat down on the bench, because he knew his knees would buckle if he kept standing. “I never even said goodbye to her. I got out of my last final, went to her room to go hang out with her and she was gone. She didn’t even leave me a note.”

Rosie put her forehead into her hands and shook her head. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Why’d she leave me?”

His friends had no answers.

It was the night before Christmas Break that a candle ceremony took place in an all-girls dorm across campus. All the dorm’s residents, as well as selected friends from other dorms, were invited to participate.

The girls gathered in a circle as the dorm director lit a candle and handed it to one of the girls. The girls would pass the candle around the circle from one girl to the next. When the candle stopped, everyone in the circle would know that the girl holding the candle was the one who had just become engaged.

That night, the candle stopped on a beaming CJ MacAllister.

CJ and Schooner were engaged.

“Don’t poke the bear!” Yolanda Perez came into Schooner Moore’s office carrying very tall lattes.

Schooner laughed and motioned her in.

“So, rumor has it you’ve ripped a few new assholes this morning,” she made a face at him saying, is that true?

He loved Yoli. She was the only person in his world who always told it like it was. No bullshit. No pretense. And that was why he could trust her. They’d been together for twenty years — she’d been with him since the beginning. Earlier this year, on her twentieth anniversary with the company, he gave her a percentage ownership of the business. CJ went ballistic when she learned about it. She totally did not get Schooner’s relationship with Yoli.

He laughed, “None that didn’t deserve to be ripped.”

“So how was the big party?”

“If you miss another one of my birthday parties, I am firing your ass,” he pointed his finger at her.

“You’re going to have to buy me out, Buddy,” they laughed.

“The big party was a Real Housewives Reunion Bash masquerading as my birthday party.” Schooner rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“I would’ve so fit in.”

Schooner almost spit out his coffee laughing at Yoli’s snark. Yoli was a cargo pants and tee shirt lesbian with short, awful colored red hair.

“Bet you could’ve gotten some action,” he teased and this time she almost spit out her coffee.

“Oh, yeah, Real Housewives in search of a taste of the other side. Think I’ll pass! How’s my sweet girl Holly doing?” Holly and Yoli had a kindred spirits relationship from the time Holly was a toddler.

“Awesome and she said to send you and Debbie her love. She was bummed you two weren’t there. At one point, I looked over at her and the look on her face was classic, like she was taking in data on a roomful of aliens.”

“With the amount of chemicals those women have had injected into themselves, they might not be classified as human anymore.”

Yoli was the one person who could instantly put him in a great mood. He knew why — he could be himself with her. And that reminded him of someone else, the person responsible for teaching him to be himself. “So, are you on Facebook?” Schooner abruptly changed the subject.

“Umm, yes. Why do you ask?” Yoli looked at Schooner with a “Where did that come from?” look.

“I guess everyone is on it, but me. How does it work? Can everyone see what you say on there or can you talk to someone privately?” It was time to get schooled.

“Ok, well you set up your profile and your own page, known as your wall and then you friend people. If you write something as your “status,” it goes on your wall and all the people you friend can see it. Same thing if you write on their wall. But if you just want one person to see your conversation, you can private message them and then the conversation is only between the two of you.”

“Ok, good,” he nodded.

“So you want to go on Facebook?” Yoli was surprised.

“I’m thinking about it.” Schooner tried to keep pokerfaced.

“No. No. No. No. No. Don’t you play that game with me, Schooner. All of the sudden you want to go on Facebook and you want to know about sending private messages. Spill it!”

He sat back in his chair and tapped his forefingers against his lips, wondering how to start this conversation. Or if he even should. But it was the only thing he could think about since Beau had brought her up on Saturday night. He couldn’t get her out of his head — not even for a second. And Yoli was truly the only person he could trust enough to confide in.

“When I was in college, there was this girl. Her name was Mia,” he smiled. “You guys would have been best friends. Oh my God, you would have loved each other. Anyway, I was crazy in love with her and I thought she was in love with me, too. We were supposed to spend the summer together and then she just disappeared. I mean literally, disappeared. I went back to her room after my last final. We were supposed to hang out together that day until she left for the airport and when I got there she was gone. No note. Nothing. And we had been like living together up until that point. And she just freaking disappeared and never came back to school. Gone. Without a trace.”

“I thought you were with CJ all through college?” Yoli looked puzzled.

“Well, except when I was with Mia. I left CJ for Mia. Oh man, did CJ hate Mia.”

“Maybe CJ killed her.” Yoli’s eyebrows shot up in mock horror.

Schooner laughed, “Don’t think that hadn’t crossed my mind.” He took a sip of his latte and shook his head. “So anyway, at the party Saturday night, my old college roommate Beau Gordon …”

“Pee Wee Herman?” Yoli interrupted.

“Yes, Pee Wee Herman.” Schooner laughed, “Beau and I start talking about this thing that happened freshman year and he asks me who the girl was that was with us and I tell him it was Mia and then he tells me that he just had a fight with Mia on Scott Morgan’s Facebook page.”

“Scott Morgan, the advertising guy?”

“Yeah, he went to our school. I didn’t even know Mia knew him. I mean he’s really kind of a random person to be in touch with.”

Yoli’s palms were up in the air, “So have you looked her up on Facebook yet?”

“No, I don’t even know how.”

She got up to come around to his side of the desk, “You are so useless. What would you do without me?”

Schooner leaned his head into her arm, “I’d be lost.”

“That’s for shit sure! Ok, let’s see if we can look at Scott Morgan’s page and his friend list without you being on Facebook yet. It’s going to depend on what he’s got his privacy settings on. Let’s Google him first because there are probably a lot of Scott Morgan’s.” She continued to punch away on his keyboard. “Ok, bingo, here he is. Let’s hope he doesn’t have his settings private.”

Schooner could feel his stomach knot. He was so close to finding Mia — after all this time. Yoli might just be a few keystrokes away. He could feel his hands shaking. Just knowing he was so close to finding her still had such a profound physical effect on him.

“Thank you, Scott! Ok, here is his Facebook page. He’s got 319 friends and we are looking for Mia who?”

“Mia Silver.”

“Ok, let’s put that in search. Bingo. Is that your Mia?” She turned to him.

He sat back in his chair and let out a long, slow exhale. He nodded his head, because he couldn’t speak and when his voice finally came out, it was choked and cracking, “Yeah. That’s my Mia.”

Yoli punched him in the arm, “Shit, she’s cute. I’d do her.”

He laughed.

Mia, all grown up. She looked the same, just older, more mature. Still so pretty. No glasses now and the wild curls were now soft shoulder-length waves with long dark bangs hanging in her eyes. He wanted to reach into the picture and push them from her eyes. He realized he was sitting there smiling at her picture and Yoli was standing there smiling at him.

“Talk about the antithesis of OC women.” Yoli observed. “So are you going to just sit there and stare at her picture all day long.”

“Yeah, I just might”

“Ok, shove over. Let’s get you on Facebook.” She began tapping away again. “We need a picture of you.” She went around to the other side of the desk and picked up her cell phone. “Smile. No. No. No. Don’t give me that bullshit male model smile. Think of Holly looking at the Housewives like they were aliens.” And she snapped the picture. “Perfection! If I do say so myself. Ok, am emailing this to you and then we are going to attach it to your profile. Done,” she came back around the desk. Tap. Tap. Tap. “You are now officially on Facebook. Ready to send her a friend invite?”

“What if she doesn’t answer or doesn’t accept it?” Yoli was shocked to see the ancient serpent of rejection rearing its ugly head in a man she knew to be in control and extremely confident in all he did, especially in his dealings with women.

“Well she definitely won’t answer if you don’t send it.” Yoli’s hands were on her hips.

Schooner just stared at the screen. What if she didn’t want him to find her? He was looking at her. He was looking at Mia. There she was. There she
was
. He couldn’t pull his eyes away from the beautiful ombre green eyes on his computer screen.

“You really loved her.” Yoli said, softly.

Schooner nodded his head. “I really loved her.”

And with that admission spoken aloud, he pushed the Send Friend Request button.

“Could today get any freaking worse?” Mia rhetorically asked her assistant, Seth Shapiro. She raked her hand through her hair, while staring at her computer screen. “I can understand losing a client because we didn’t do a good job, because we didn’t deliver. But because his daughter got engaged to some guy who works for a competitor? Do we need to start pimping out our staff? Because I am not above pimping out our staff.” Mia was on a tear. “Fuck!”

“Kami thinks you’re going to fire her.” Seth looked a little scared of Mia at the moment.

“That’s ridiculous. She’s done everything to keep these assholes happy. This is not the way she deserves to lose this account.” Mia pulled up a spreadsheet on her computer. “This really hurts our cash flow.” Seth had been Mia’s right hand since before she started the agency — there was no aspect of the business that she didn’t confide details with him, which is why they made such a great team.

“Do not make me give up my massages.” Seth glared at Mia in the way only an over the top queen can.

“Don’t worry, Princess, we won’t be eating cat food for another few months, yet,” she sneered back at him. “Do you have the latest weekly sales pipeline?” Seth handed Mia the report, she tapped the page a few times with her index finger and then dialed an extension, putting the call on speakerphone.

“Hey Boss,” the voice came through the phone.

“Hey Dave, so how far away are we from automating that new work from American Express? Give me worst case scenario,” she and Seth looked at each other, holding their breath.

“Well, you know what they’re like with the endless conference calls and doing everything by committee, but their IT guy and I have been kind of doing our own thing. So I’d say worst case is live traffic in 6 weeks.” Mia fist pumped the air and mouthed a silent “YES” to Seth.

“Excellent, Dave. You made my day!”

He laughed on the other end, “I thought that might make you happy and I’ll step it up even more to see if we can be live in four to five weeks. I know what a hole we’ve now got after today’s bullshit.”

“Yeah, bullshit is right.” Mia agreed, “I’m going to start pimping out the staff. It’s the only answer,” she kidded.

“Count me in, Boss. Pimp me anytime.”

Mia laughed, “That’s why I love this staff, Seth.”

“Ho!” Seth yelled at Dave.

“Damn right, I get the job done,” he kidded back.

They disconnected the call and Mia looked at Seth, “Ok, let’s plan on two months of it being tight. I don’t want to stop the sales team from selling, but expenses need to be kept down until we have the additional cash flow from AmEx.”

“Memo or staff meeting?” Seth asked.

“Staff meeting — let’s do this face-to-face and get Kami in here first. I need to talk to her before she slits her wrists and bleeds out all over her office.” Mia smiled at Seth, “Monday’s suck!”

Two hours later, a drained Mia and Seth sat in her office alone again. “I’m glad we did the meeting, Mia. They were all freaking about losing their jobs.”

“The last thing I want to do is lay off people. We have never had to lay off anyone. I will give up my salary if we need to make payroll.” Seth loved working with Mia. She had built a small ad agency that was more like a wonderful dysfunctional family than a place of business and Mia saying she would give up her salary not to lay off people was not just empty words and he knew it. That was the ethos of the organization and precisely why Mia’s staff would run through walls for her.

She looked at her watch and smiled, “I bet the turkeys are out of the oven at the deli.” She went to get her purse out of her drawer and Seth stopped her.

“Sit down. Let me run down and get you a sandwich. Am sure this morning put you way behind schedule. Turkey on rye with Russian dressing and an Iced Tea?”

“Yes, thank you. Put your lunch on my card, too,” she handed him her Gold Card.

“Shall I close your door?” Mia nodded, as he headed out.

Thank God for Seth, she thought. If anyone could keep her life in order and keep her on track, it was Seth. Anal, persnickety, bitchy as all hell, incredibly loyal and very competent. He was her rock as well as her personal fashion police, making sure that her somewhat BoHo style was always trendy and chic.

Mia took a swig from a bottle of water on her desk and thought, today has sucked and it’s only lunchtime on Monday. Please don’t get any worse, I’ve had enough already.